Opponents of ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Persons With Disabilities have argued that the treaty would cause fundamental change in American life and society. Pointing out that the U.S. Constitution makes treaties the “supreme law of the land,” opponents have raised the specter of the treaty requiring parents to stop home schooling disabled children, granting disabled persons broad rights to abortion and transferring to a committee of international experts the power to review and question U.S. policies toward the disabled.

The Senate opponents of the disabilities treaty should have saved their fire for the more significant treaties that are approaching.

While these concerns are not completely unfounded, treaty opponents are grossly exaggerating the impact that the convention would have on U.S. law and policy. The Obama administration, following a precedent set during the George H.W. Bush administration, has carefully shielded U.S. law from the treaty's legal effect. It has conditioned Senate approval on a “non-self-executing” declaration that prevents any litigation under the convention in U.S courts. It has also added a federalism reservation that would prevent the convention from overriding inconsistent state law. And for good measure, it added a “private conduct” reservation that would prevent it from regulating nonstate actors, like parents or small businesses. Taken together, these limitations would indeed render the convention a legal nullity within the United States.

In my view, therefore, senators who are distrustful of international institutions and U.N.-sponsored international treaties should have saved their ammunition for a more significant target. Unlike the disabilities treaty, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea really does grant international agencies and tribunals broad authority to impose legal obligations on the United States. And in contrast to the disabilities treaty, measures to limit the domestic effect of the law of the sea treaty will provide less protection because it is primarily concerned with regulating the activities of the U.S. government on the high seas. The U.S. government’s effort to patrol the high seas and explore for natural resources on the ocean floors will be directly affected, perhaps negatively, by this convention.

The Senate opponents of the disabilities treaty are right to worry about troubling interpretations of vague international treaty language by unelected and unaccountable international bureaucrats. Although these concerns should be taken seriously, they are misplaced with respect to this carefully limited and circumscribed convention. Those senators would do better by saving their fire (and preserving their credibility) for the truly significant treaties now approaching.